


Qunari Prayers for the Dead

by MaevesChild



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Love, Religion, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 16:47:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17287784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaevesChild/pseuds/MaevesChild
Summary: Shok ebasit hissra. Meraad astaarit, meraad itwasit, aban aqun. Maraas shokra."Struggle is an illusion. The tide rises, the tide falls, but the sea is changeless. There is nothing to struggle against."





	Qunari Prayers for the Dead

_Shok ebasit hissra._ The struggle is an illusion.

The cage is too small to sit so I stand, careful not to touch the rusted iron bars. At first, it is too small to expand lungs to take enough air. It is cold, damp. I am hungry. The pain of the body keeps me firmly rooted here, so far from my home. I struggle. I pray.

Time passes, the cage remains.

_Shok ebasit hissra._

I have done this to myself; my failure has lost me my soul, my honor. I am incomplete, but still I pray. Words in cadence like the march of trained feet, like whetstone against steel, like a heartbeat. Death will be my atonement. The darkspawn will come and wash me away like sand in a hurricane. I accept this but the cage remains, does not fall away. I struggle.

_Shok ebasit hissra._

Then, a key in the lock, gears grind and the door opens, screaming on dry hinges. A Grey Warden, the elf claims. A small thing, a female, how? I wonder if I should close the door, but the struggle never once abated, no matter how fervently I believed, how reverently I prayed.

“I shall follow you against the Blight and there find my atonement.”

“What if I decide to do something else with you?”

“You can try.”

_Shok ebasit hissra._

The cage remains, but the door is open.

 

* * *

 

 _Meraad astaarit_. The tide rises.

I do not understand the elf’s place in all this. A woman who fights, which cannot be. She fights even when I question her. She does not smile; her eyes have the emptiness I feel inside myself. I think, it is because you do not know yourself. You should be a priestess, small bas. You dance with flashing blades like the Ben-Hassrath.

 _Meraad astaarit_.

She fights and it is I who start to accept. She fights me as I speak my truth. I lost my soul, my brothers and my self control. I did a monstrous thing that cannot be forgiven. Her face is passive. She speaks to her past, the crimes against her and her victims. Her anger was not misplaced as mine was. She promises to look for my soul; her eyes say hers is lost forever.

 _Meraad astaarit_.

She is wrong. I am wrong. She is not a fighter, not a priest. She is _ashkaari_. She found my soul, a single blade in a land of war and chaos and placed it in my hand again. Honor I must still regain myself, but it is possible now that I am complete. I look into her eyes and try to thank her, but there are no words to express this. There are no words for my sorrow when her eyes still hold an empty place.

 _Meraad astaarit_.

I ask. It is my way, to be curious. It is why I am Sten, why I am of the Vanguard. Why, _basalit-an_ , why are you empty? You have purpose, you have honor.

“I had a life.” Her voice is still as the midnight sea in Seheron. “But it was destroyed by a human noble. A _shemlen_ bastard. He broke us. I could not save them.”

Her water is not still. The eye of the hurricane, perhaps.

“We were ruined in the eyes of our people; ruined as women, as wives. There is no future for me.”

This I know. My honor is still lost. I put my hands on her shoulders, the weight of Asala hanging on my back, anchoring me to the earth.

“The future will come. We will find our place.”

 _Meraad astaarit_. The tide rises.

The cage falls away.

 

* * *

 

 _Meraad itwasit._ The tide falls.

It has been many long months since Seheron, but it’s many keen benefits weigh heavy on my mind. The sand, the heat, sweet release given from the touch of the Tamassran. The needs of the body must be appeased or the needs of the mind and soul are so easily forgotten in distress. The Qun knows, but the Qun holds me back.

Those who speak, touch. It is the way of things. She is one who seeks, I know. I cannot touch her. But the body does not listen to reason and as the Vanguard, we know that we must be like the trees that grow in the sand, with their tall slender trunks. They survive storms because they bend.

I remember my hands on her shoulders.

_Meraad itwasit._

She does not smile easy, but I see her lips curl when she looks at me. I have watched. I know how the bas are, how they play games with affections and confuse the needs of the body for the needs of the heart. We Qunari love as any other living being does, but we know the difference.

I know.

_Meraad itwasit._

Do I know this? There is no Tamassran here to soothe me, no Ben-Hassrath to remind me. I am alone here, except for her. _Basalit-an_. More than that. She is _Kadan._

I tell her of Seheron, of the Qun. Like many elves, I see her eyes glitter at the opportunities the Qun gives her people. I do not tell her that as many viddathari sweep floors as bear swords. The Qun gives a purpose, but from the outside those bonds can chafe. I have seen it. I have looked into the empty eyes of those touched by qamek. I could not bear to see her as they are.

I explain what the Tamassran do, how they soothe the body.  I tell her what I would do, have done. I do not mention that Tamassran duties and the heart are not to be confused. She would not understand.

My hands on her shoulders. My name, as she knows me, on her lips. Her lips on mine before I can regain my self control.

_Meraad itwasit._

A sword for my sheath. My sword for hers.

We should not fit but we do. I thought Asala made me complete. Again, I am wrong.

 

* * *

 

 _Aban aqun._ The sea is changeless.

It should be a battle of failure now. This is what I have been taught. I must be reeducated. I must not confuse the needs of the body with the needs of the heart.

But I am wrong.

Nothing has changed, except that I do not feel the same pang of loneliness, the ache of need that plagued me. I still miss Seheron, but I do not suffer it. I have filled my nose with the scent of her skin to replace incense, with the warmth of her bedroll to replace the sun.

I am not distracted in battle as the Tamassran taught. I know I do not need to protect her. I have fallen in battle; she has not. Perhaps I am wrong. I am Sten. A curious mind, but only eyes. It is not my place to decide what is truth, only to report what I see.

If I survive the Blight to return, I will not tell them everything. I am of the Qun, but some things I know are meant only for me: small warm fingers on my arm, a small flash of teeth in firelight filtered through canvas, the music of sighs. I know the Antivan elf is covetous. It is hard to not feel pride.

_Aban aqun._

I am Sten. She is Kadan. We fight. _What is the Blight?_ weighs on my mind, but I do not yet know the answer. The Blight feels like the sea when it is angry. Storms lash black, violent waves against the sand and destroy without discrimination. This is the Blight, but it is more. I do not yet know what that is.

I will stay. I am not confused.

_Aban aqun._

We rush towards our death and I feel something. I am the same, am I not?

My sword rings against darkspawn blades.

 

* * *

 

 _Maraas shokra._ There is nothing to struggle against.

The cage, my lost sword, my honor. My feelings.

I have struggled against them since my brothers fell. If only I had known. If only I had known Koslun’s words in my soul as I should have, there would have been no need to battle myself. I could have saved all my strength for the Blight, for her.

I know what the Tamassran teach and I know I do not understand the words of Ashkaari Koslun as a priest would. I know I am a Sten of the Beresaad. I know what the Qun sings in my heart. I know what she sings in my heart. My kadan.

 _Sataareth kadan hass-toh issala ebasit._ It is my purpose to do what I must for kadan, where my heart lies.

We are here at the edge of the precipice. The dragon, this archdemon, awaits. Whatever the outcome of the battle, I will have an answer for the Arishok at last.

She marches with the loyalty of allies and enemies alike. All have come. I did not think these bas capable of such a thing. Perhaps they are not capable, but she is. She has made this happen.

I have been careful. No matter my emotions, I have tried to keep them apart from what my body does with her. It will only be harder if I do not. But tomorrow we march and I cannot. I will do now what she needs, not what I have been trained to do.

_Maraas shokra._

I go to her. I have allowed her to come to me, but I have not come to her before. Waves push and pull and remain the same. I am the same. I am new.

She is silent.

There is destruction behind her eyes; I recognize this strain on the soul well but do not understand the cause of it in her heart. There is something new here, but she will not tell me.

I know why.

The Tamassran were right after all. I would die for her and I know she would not wish this. She does not tell me why her heart has broken, but she kisses me. She takes me into her body. She holds my face between her hands.

“Sten.” Her voice, only for me. “I love you.”

I have been taught to not understand this, but I do.

“ _Kadan._ My heart.”

It is only now that I am complete.

 

* * *

 

 _Ebasit kata. Maraas kata._ It is ended. Nothing is ended.

I know why she did not tell me. She knew what was to come, what she would do. One last small moment for me and then silence.

The Arishok asked, _What is the Blight?_ and by his curiosity I am here. I have the answer now, in prose and poetry. I have much to tell him and the others of this battle, of the Ferelden bas, of this one I knew as Kadan. The world is less for her passing; it is more for her existence.  Perhaps the Blight would even have swallowed Seheron, in time if she had not come. Were I the Arishok, I would name her _qunoran vehl_ even as she bent what I knew to be true to include feelings I should not have known.

The Tamassran are right. I would not feel this emptiness if I had not known the opposite before. I would not hurt, would not bleed in my soul if I had not let the feelings of my heart and body be shared with one.

I would also be less. They are right to protect us. And they are wrong to keep us from this.

_I love you. Ebasit kata._

_Kadan. Maraas kata._

I will return to Seheron, to my people, to the Qun. I will seek refuge and healing. When they ask if there are any worthy people in the outside world, in this I will tell them the truth.

I have met only one.


End file.
